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The Independent Voice of Culture & Progressive PoliticsTue, 21 Jul 2015 00:46:05 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3Happy 46th Moon Day!http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2015/07/20/happy-46th-moon-day/
http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2015/07/20/happy-46th-moon-day/#commentsMon, 20 Jul 2015 23:44:05 +0000http://thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=18613 Continue reading → ]]>In light of the recent jingoism of the Pluto fly-by (which I had hoped we were bigger than — after all, what looks sillier than those getting the first view of our furthest “planet” standing around waving US flags?) it’s a good time to remember the wording of that plaque we left behind on all our Apollo missions:

“We came in peace for all mankind.”

The Apollo missions taught us that we were all spacemen huddled together on that one small blue marble whirling in the Stygian void of space.

I have written about this “holiday” every year since at least 2006. You can find previous columns at The Moderate Voice, and at The Democratic Daily. They make the case for this (obvious) holiday, and remind us of what a feat we take for granted.

“The exploration of Pluto and its moons by New Horizons represents the capstone event to 50 years of planetary exploration by NASA and the United States,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Once again we have achieved a historic first. The United States is the first nation to reach Pluto, and with this mission has completed the initial survey of our solar system, a remarkable accomplishment that no other nation can match.”

Yew Essay! Yew Essay! Yew Essay!

Pluto on 14 July 2015

Happy Moon Day, my friends. For our species and our planet.

I love my country, but this will stand far longer than any nation or flag.

How do you promote a slick piece of GOPaganda, bash your arch-enemy, the New York Times, and manipulate an incompetent and credulous media that you DON’T own (yet) into carrying your (sewer) water for you?

The New York Times’ refusal to put Ted Cruz’s memoir on its bestseller list is once again being called into question — this time by Amazon, the largest Internet retailer in the country. — On Sunday, an Amazon spokesperson told …

In 1989, Collins was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and the publisher was combined with Harper & Row, which NewsCorp had acquired two years earlier. In addition to the simplified and merged name, the logo for HarperCollins was derived from the torch logo for Harper and Row, and the fountain logo for Collins, which were combined into a stylized set of flames atop waves.

In 1999, News Corporation purchased the Hearst Book Group, consisting of William Morrow & Company and Avon Books. These imprints are now published under the rubric of HarperCollins.

HarperCollins bought educational publisher Letts and Lonsdale in March 2010.

In 2011, HarperCollins announced they had agreed to acquire the publisher Thomas Nelson. The purchase was completed on July 11, 2012, with an announcement that Thomas Nelson would operate independently given the position it has in Christian book publishing.

But, seriously, WHAT KIND OF AWFUL reporter would accept the wolf’s report on who’s to blame for the tragedy in the henhouse?

And yet, that’s what Byers has done. Not just once, but in the latest iteration, he called a mucky-muck at Amazon on a SUNDAY, who said they don’t have evidence of bulk buys … at AMAZON.

Less “Sherlock” than “Sheer Luck.”

So what? Bulk buys ofttimes take place at significant discounts and bulk rates — to Conservative Book Clubs, as was a standard scam of Tom Phillips’ imprints from at least 1993 (when he bought Regnery) at least until he sold Regnery Press, (and Human Events, RedState, American Spectator) etcetera etcetera in January 2014 to Salem Communications, now Salem Media Group. Some might recall that Regnery authors SUED for alleged loss of royalties through these “book club” sales. The lawsuit was sent to arbitration and lost on all counts.

OK: What does AMAZON know about this?

Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. They base their bestseller lists on their sales. And that was, at best, what the AMAZON employee Dylan Byers called on Sunday, knew.

So, again, you have a non-credible to IN-credible “defense” of Ted Cruz’s book by supposedly objective “journalist” Dylan Byers of Politico repeated as red meat for the standard blogswarm by the Usual Suspects:

Click for the Memeorandum page

The only real “mainstream” press to play the “meetoo” game is a business reporter at CNN, who writes, INcredibly:

Amazon denied Monday that “bulk purchases” were fueling sales of Ted Cruz’s new book, but the New York Times said it’s not budging in its decision to exclude the senator’s memoir from its bestseller list. Amazon said in a statement that it has found “no evidence of unusual bulk purchase activity in our sales data” for Cruz’s recently released book “A Time for Truth.” …

Amazon didn’t “side” with anybody. And they didn’t DENY anything in the New York Times’ stated reasons. No: making such a statement is poor reporting, poor thinking, and ought to get this joker reprimanded by any competent newsroom editor.

Oh NO! Ted Cruz is left off the bestseller list! EVIL LIBERULZ!

But you know CNN these daze [sic].

They reported that they haven’t seen any bulk sales. Again, to use the Cosby analogy, this is tantamount to Mrs. Cosby saying that she didn’t see any drugging and rapes. No one in their right mind would accept THAT argument at face value, and yet, Politico and CNN do.

WTF?

Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy on Monday said the newspaper is standing by its decision to keep “A Time for Truth” off its bestseller list…. Murphy said in an email…. “The notion that we would manipulate the bestseller list to exclude books for political reasons is simply ludicrous,” she said.

And the CNN “let’s you and him fight” reporter concludes with the Cruz campaign’s little threat:

Rick Tyler, Cruz’s campaign spokesman, dismissed the Times’ claim last week as a “blatant falsehood.”
He said the newspaper, long the object of conservative scorn, is “presumably embarrassed by having their obvious partisan bias called out.” And “We call on the Times, release your so-called ‘evidence,'” Tyler said in a statement on Friday.

Now, the New York Times has a poor track record of standing up to Right Wing bullying. We’ll see what happens here.

After all, John Hinderaker, the Koch Brothers’ favorite blogger (and an employee via his law firm) hits on the Times TWICE, even though the New York Times has been covering the national book scene longer than Politico, Amazon, CNN and Murdoch’s American presence PUT TOGETHER.

And these absurd, straw man accusations of “bias” are selling books AND bashing the NYT at the same time. Win-win for Murdoch, as they say.

(As an aside: One of the other BESTSELLER lists mentioned by both Murdoch media water-carrier Byers and the CNN stooge is the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. Nobody bothers mentioning that the WSJ is owned by Murdoch as well, and is a competitor of the New York Times. The self-serving interests of the Murdoch empire are apparent to any objective or competent observer, but seem to have entirely eluded Dylan Byers and Tom Kludt. Ah, American journalism, how far you have fallen.)

Here’s the recap for the easily distracted: Dylan Byers pushes HarperCollins/Ted Cruz’s self-serving meme that the New York Times (liberals! GASP!) is keeping his A Time For Truth book off the bestseller charts because (implicitly) they hate conservatives. Never mind that Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly have “routinely ranked high on our lists.” No: the BS meme that the biased Right is not biased and the Left is ALWAYS biased is once more conditioned into the drooling Pavlovian subjects. Byers’ evidence is laughable to virtually any bright fifth grader who’s ever read Encyclopedia Brown stories, but that lets out 99% of Murdoch’s base audience.

The absurd argument (HarperCollins says there is no manipulation. AMAZON says they’re not getting any “bulk sales,” but the nature of such sales means that AMAZON would almost NEVER be the source of such sales! And the “refutation” comes from Byers calling an Amazon employee on a Sunday) is made and then picked up, uncritically (that’s an UNDERSTATEMENT) by a CNN Business “reporter.”

The Usual Suspects behind a gazillion fraudulent media manipulations jump on it, and it’s suddenly a “story.” Even though its basis is tissue thin. The New York Times is then attacked and the credulous are barraged with fake publicity for this “truth” book, goosing sales, since any “controversy” always helps to sell books.

The entire story is suspiciously corrupt and my opinion of Politico can’t get any worse, so there no change there. But it stinks on ice. And will any US blog or news outlet do other than IGNORE this vile media manipulation?

I leave you to answer THAT question, gentle reader.

More Media Manipulation Money to Murdoch’s Minions

And, talk about burying the lede! This is the penultimate paragraph of Byers’ latest incredibly poor and complicit reporting which actually tells us all that we REALLY need to know:

“It’s been a good week and a half with wall-to-wall coverage of the book, and yes, this latest unfortunate news courtesy of the New York Times is a chance to get yet more attention and drive readers to Senator Cruz’s book,” Keith Urbahn, the book’s literary agent, said last week. “This controversy is already helping sales.”

Unfortunate for the New York Times, he means. Over at RupertWorld, they’re probably dancing in the halls.

In her first major policy speech today since announcing her candidacy for president, Hillary Clinton put higher wages for low-income workers at the heart of her economic policy outline saying “I believe we have to build a growth-and-fairness economy.”

Hillary also spoke out about the rise in corporate profits, taking a jab at big industry, as she said, “Corporate profits are at near-record highs and Americans are working as hard as ever but paychecks have barely budged in real terms.”

Clinton also took on Wall Street today in her speech saying, “Too many of our major financial institutions are still too complex and too risky and the problems are not limited to the big banks that get all the headlines.”

Clinton warned that “serious risks are emerging from institutions in the so-called shadow banking system including hedge funds, high-frequency traders, non-bank finance companies”

Income equality is at an all time low. Many workers are stuck in the gig economy, as I noted in my last post. Hillary Clinton proposed these solutions for economy in her speech today:

Strong Growth – She believes we must grow our economy by making smart investments that boost growth, such as in research and development, infrastructure, clean energy, and tax relief for small businesses and the middle class. And she will call for breaking down barriers to joining the workforce, especially for women, by promoting paid leave and affordable child care so that more Americans are working, producing, earning, and therefore supporting growth.

Fair Growth – She called for giving workers the chance to share in the profits they help produce and outlined how we can achieve fairer growth and reduce inequality by raising the minimum wage, reducing health care costs, supporting collective bargaining, reforming our tax code, and improving the quality and accessibility of our education and training system from early learning through college and beyond.

Long-Term Growth – She will push corporations to abandon “quarterly capitalism” through policies like a reformed tax system that rewards long-term over short-term investments. She also committed to defend Wall Street reform and take them further by pursuing further reforms to tackle size, risk, and complexity, by regulating shadow banks, and by holding individuals – not just corporations – accountable.

Word has it that Hillary has a series of upcoming speeches in which she will lay out more of her vision for economy including “increasing the minimum wage, creating universal preschool and investing in infrastructure.”

]]>http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2015/07/13/hillary-lays-vision-economy/feed/0A Gig Isn’t A Jobhttp://thedemocraticdaily.com/2015/07/13/gig-job/
http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2015/07/13/gig-job/#commentsMon, 13 Jul 2015 15:57:40 +0000http://thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=18595 Continue reading → ]]>The middle class is eroding. A real full-time job is a thing of the past for many working Americans. The part-time, freelance gig has replaced the full-time job and that has created shrinkage in the middle-class and income insecurity has become the norm for too many people.

While some people might like having a little more free time, the average worker depending on freelance and gig type work has a hard time making ends meet on a regular basis. For many of these people they don’t know when or if they will find a gig. Many people feel that the economic crisis we faced a few years ago simply has not been addressed in a way that can facilitate real change for struggling Americans:

“Whether America will be America or not hinges on whether we have a downward spiral around wages,” said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, a think tank closely aligned with Mrs. Clinton. “People know things are changing. They don’t feel like anyone has a handle on it. There’s a yearning for a political vision that addresses that.”

There is no income stability. There is not saving for a rainy day. There is just constant worrying about making ends meet. I know this, I live the gig life myself. It is an all too common lifestyle for many single women who are raising children alone. Poverty in America is still a very pervasive issue.

I think a lot of people are looking to election 2016 for answers to the economic problems of today. They won’t get those answers from the Republican candidates.

Hillary Clinton delivered a speech on her economic policy vision today. I believe she is our best hope.

The Bush family dynasty has proved to be far more fruitful for Jeb Bush than the Clinton fund raising machine was for Hillary in the last quarter. And Jeb’s haul makes Bernie Sanders’ donations for the fundraising quarter look like a few pennies littering the street.

The Bush family compound up in Kennebunk, Maine was recently the scene of an old fashioned Sunday sort of fundraising affair complete with an old fashioned trolley, burgers and lobster rolls.

In a quote to the NYT, lobbyist Dirk Van Dongen likened the Bush compound in Kennebunkport to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis. Indeed, Jeb Bush’s haul was record breaking:

[…] Mr. Bush’s campaign and super PAC announced that they had amassed more money, and more quickly, than any presidential effort in history, easily outpacing his rivals for the Republican nomination.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court this past week ordered the legislature and the executive branch to remove a six-foot tall Ten Commandments granite monument from the front of the state house.

The monument was placed there in January and is a direct violation of the First Amendment.
The response by dozens of legislators, most of whom may be illiterate about the Constitution, was to call for the impeachment of the justices. The state’s attorney general who, presumably, took Constitutional Law in college, said he would appeal the decision. He, and many legislators, are also thinking of repealing the part of the state constitution that prohibits the use of public funds for religious purposes. The only question here is—how much taxpayer money will the state waste in the appeals and an action to rewrite the state constitution before the Supreme Court of the United States officially declares Oklahoma to be in need of long-term mental health assistance.

Over in Alabama, Ray Moore, the state’s chief justice, thinks the Ten Commandments should be in front of the court house. The other eight justices disagreed with him, and the Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed him in 2003 from office for violating both the Constitution and a federal court order to remove the 5,200 pound granite block he had commissioned.

After several failed attempts to become the state’s governor, Moore again ran for the office of chief justice, and was elected in 2012, still pledging to violate state and federal law.

I have no objections to the Ten Commandments being placed in public spaces, especially court houses and state capital lawns.

But, there are a few requirements I have.

First, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and entered into a covenant with the Jews more than 1,200 years before the seeds of Christianity were planted. God didn’t give the Ten Commandments to the Southern Baptists, Muslims, Hindis, or even the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So, if the legislatures and other politicians want a Ten Commandments monument in public places, they must first become Jews.

It makes no difference if it’s Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. I don’t care if they become Chassidic, Reconstructionist, or even secular Jews. But, they must become Jews. This would be God’s will.
Second, because Jews tend to be more liberal in social issues than the rest of the population, the politicians would be expected to embrace universal health care, civil rights for all people—including the right of same-sex marriage, improved working conditions and wages, a strong commitment to those who are of the underclass of society, a tolerance and understanding of others’ faiths, and activism for environmental and animal rights issues.

Third, they must follow all of the commandments, especially the one about not committing adultery.

They can choose which day of the week they could hold as holy. If they choose Saturday, the Jews’ day of Sabbath, they would be forbidden from playing golf or working on their broken-down pick-up trucks. If they choose Sunday as the day of Sabbath, they wouldn’t be allowed to watch NFL football.

It’s not much to ask them to do. Become Jews. Embrace liberal social issues. And follow the commandments.

When they agree to these terms, I might be able to support them wanting to place the Ten Commandments on the lawns of their state houses—but only after they write a new Constitution, and reform the United States as a Jewish state, not unlike the socialist Israeli state.

[Dr. Brasch is a social issues journalist, retired university professor of mass communications, and author of 20 books. His latest is Fracking Pennsylvania, a definitive look at the economics, politics, and health, and environmental; effects surrounding fracking in the country.]

In the summer of 1994 when I was 15 years old my father and I went down to Mississippi to visit my uncle and his daughter; a cousin of mine I had only seen in photos. I was excited and at the same time scared out of my mind to go to Mississippi. I was born and raised in Detroit Michigan. My father’s side of the family is from a small southern town in Alabama called Marion. I went to several family reunions in Alabama and had a great time. The people were nice and acted as if they knew me my whole life. Mississippi however, was a whole other animal in my mind. I had heard the story of Emmett Till and seen the Jet Magazine photo of his face. I watched the PBS documentary “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” chronicling the civil rights movement. I read several books on the Deep South. I heard stories about the south from the elders in my community. In both the books and the stories from the elders Mississippi always seem to stand out as a place where if you were a black man and you did something wrong in the eyes of white folks you were either dead or missing. When we first got to Mississippi the first thing I saw was the Confederate flag. It was as if it was letting us know we were behind enemy lines. We went to a gas station and I saw it again on a wall. We went into a gift shop and I saw the Confederate flag on the coffee mugs and t-shirts inside the gift shop. Every time I saw that flag it put a chill down my spine. I wanted so badly to ask my father could we please go back home to Detroit. The Confederate flag to me as a 15-year-old boy was a symbol of hate, oppression, and second-class citizenship. I hated the fact it made me feel powerless, insignificant and irrelevant. I wanted to break every coffee mug and rip every t-shirt from the walls. I wanted to ask them WHY? Why do you have this displayed EVERYWHERE? Do you not know how seeing this symbol makes me feel? Do you want me to be angry and afraid? Is that the point? While down in Mississippi I stayed close to my family. I didn’t go passed the driveway of my uncle’s house. I dared not ask any of the white kids to play with me and nobody had to tell me that those were the rules, it just seemed like it was the thing to do. I always remember that trip down to Mississippi for two things THE HEAT and that damn flag.

Judge A. Joseph Antanavage, with shotgun in hand, stood before a modified Confederate battle flag, and looked as if he had planned to defend whatever it is that the Confederate flag stands for.

But, this wasn’t in the South. This was at a pigeon shoot near Hamburg, Pa. Pennsylvania is not only where the only legal organized pigeon shoots still exist, but where it’s not unusual to see shooters waving the Confederate flag or wearing clothing that features the flag.

Pennsylvania is the Keystone state, the state where the Declaration of Independence was written, and the Articles of Confederation approved. It is where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on Nov. 19, 1863, four months after the three-day battle led to 7,058 fatalities and 33,264 wounded, most with what would be life-long injuries. It is where the country heard that its Founding Fathers had believed, “all men are created equal.”

The beliefs of the Founding Fathers, even the few who owned slaves, have not been accepted by hundreds of thousands of Americans who are willing to tell anyone within voice range there are inferior races in America.

Those who defend that flag—the symbol of treason against the United States of America—say it is history, a part of the South’s heritage. But it is a symbol of defiance that should have died with the surrender at Appomattox Court House in 1865.
But it didn’t die. It was invigorated by the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, White Citizens Councils, and the declaration, “The South Shall Rise Again,” often spoken by men with guns and broken-down pick-ups.

The original battle flag, with the stars-and-bars, was square, and there were several variations. The rectangular flag became popular in the Reconstruction era, so the heritage dates not to the Civil War but to the era of racism.

The murder of nine Blacks at a church in Charleston, S.C., reignited the fires of hatred as well as a realization that the Confederate flag is a symbol of that racism. (Of course, while the nation is talking about a flag, they have conveniently overlooked critical issues of responsible gun control and civil rights.)

Nevertheless, Gov. Nikki Haley (R-S.C.), following the murders, changed her view about the Confederate flag, padlocked to its staff and flying proudly on the statehouse grounds. During the 1960s, it was flown from on top of the state house, a symbol of protest to racial integration. In 2000, it was moved to a staff on the statehouse grounds, the result of a compromise by the Republican-controlled legislature and civil rights groups. Gov. Haley wants the flag removed. But, she needs a two-thirds vote of her legislature to do that. There are still legislators who, for the cameras say they oppose segregation but that the flag is a respected symbol of the South’s history.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans say they will fight to keep the flag where it is, flapping in the wind, high above the heads of Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, and all minorities. They say it is their heritage. But, there are other ways to preserve a heritage. There are articles, books, and documentaries. There are plaques, statues, and museums. Some say they wave the flag because, like them it is a symbol of society’s rebel. But, the only thing they rebel against appears to be the rights of all people. Their defiance may hopefully relegate them to insignificant obscurity.

Georgia’s official flag, from 1956 to 2001, adopted as a defiant protest to civil rights, was dominated by the stars-and-bars before finally being replaced.

Gov. Robert Bentley (R-Ala.) ordered the Confederate battle flag removed from the Confederate memorial on the state Capitol grounds. Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.) wants to ban the confederate flag from the vanity license plates of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The Republican-dominated Mississippi legislature has no plans to modify its state flag. That flag has a replica of the Confederate flag in the corner where the American white stars on a blue field would be, and a blue stripe, a white stripe, and a red stripe in the area where the U.S. flag’s alternating red and white stripes would be. As long as Mississippi and the South continue to fly the battle flag, some of the more legitimate reasons for the South’s secession will forever be obscured by the racism of slavery.

Major retailers—including Walmart, Sears, Kmart, eBay, and Amazon—have banned the sale of flags and items with the Confederate stars-and-bars decorations. Apple has removed from its website and stores several games with the Confederate flag. Perhaps this should have been done decades ago, but for whatever reason they are doing it now, it is a good reason.

There has been a strong brush-back by Confederate sympathizers. Sales of the flag and flag-related items have increased in the past week at retailers that have more of an interest in profits than a moral conscience.

For southerners and other sympathizers who are offended that a symbol of racism and treason may not be available to them, there is an easy solution.

They can take a trip to northeastern Pennsylvania, home of the Civil War Fishing Creek Confederacy, which actively opposed the Union. In Summer, they can attend one of the largest monster truck rallies in the nation; in Fall, they can attend the state’s largest fair. Vendors will sell them a variety of Confederate battle flag trinkets, toys, and clothing. They can buy flags from vendors, put them on their trucks, drive down Main Street, whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ as if they were the ones who are entrusted with protecting white womenhood and the way of life that existed in ante-bellum America.

Or, if they can’t attend the rally and the fair, they might be able to spend a weekend at one of a half-dozen pigeon shoots, where they can dress like hunters, hold a shotgun meant to kill caged pigeons, and proudly pose in front of the rebel flag.

[Dr. Brasch is an award-winning social issues journalist and professor emeritus of mass communications. The latest of his 20 books is Fracking Pennsylvania, an overview of the environmental and health issues of horizontal fracturing, as well as the history, economics, and politics.]

]]>http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2015/06/27/whoopin-a-hollerin-plantation-life/feed/0Hillary Takes Bold And Powerful Stance on Racism and Gun Controlhttp://thedemocraticdaily.com/2015/06/20/hillary-bold-powerful-stance-racism-gun-control/
http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2015/06/20/hillary-bold-powerful-stance-racism-gun-control/#commentsSat, 20 Jun 2015 21:41:40 +0000http://thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=18570 Continue reading → ]]> This is what the first female president of the United States sounds like…

We heard it loud and clear today, as Hillary Clinton spoke today at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors.

Listening to Hillary speak today, her gentle voice implored us all to think deeply about the implications of the horrific tragedy that just struck in Charleston as Dylan Storm Roof took the lives of nine Blacks worshiping in their church earlier this week.

Hillary addressed our nation’s need for not just common sense gun control but also for more love and caring for each other. Both important issues to stand up for.

I came of age as the Civil Rights movement was beginning to not only change laws but change hearts.

I’ve seen the expansion of not just rights but opportunities to so many of our fellow men and women who had been left out and left behind.

But we have unfinished business. And I am absolutely confident and optimistic we can get that done.

Hillary also implored all who were listening to understand the deep need to fight racism in America, still today. Everything that Hillary Clinton said in her speech today spoke to the better angels in us all.

This is the Hillary Clinton I endorse for President. This is the Hillary Clinton I endorsed in 2008. She is mother, she is grandmother. She has been a champion for women and children for decades. She is brilliant, she listens, and she gets it. All of it. We need Hillary Clinton more than ever… She showed me that today as she took a bold and powerful stance on racism and gun control. Stand with me as I stand for Hillary, because Hillary is standing for all who struggle. That I know.

You have to admit this much: the White GOPs find themselves, increasingly, defending the indefensible with increasingly flaccid tropes.

Defending discrimination against LGBT. Defending voting against Veterans’ (desperately needed) benefits. Defending NOT doing anything to lift the boot heel of the recession from American throats. Defending NOT doing anything about the increasingly apocalyptic weather of Global Warming. Defending torture. Defending War Crimes and criminals. Defending NOT doing anything to pay for their war debt. Defending keeping people from getting health care.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) just happened to be scheduled to appear on The View Thursday morning. But because of the deadly mass shooting at a black church in his home state last night …

Yes, Virginia. That’s spin. In fact, the original Faux Nooz spin started just seconds after President Obama’s statement.

I managed to catch Faux Nooz in the “breaking news” phase, and there was the National Review contributor telling the Gretchen Carlson stand-in (and by “Stand in” I mean it in the movie sense, as the thin-nosed at-least-bottle-blond was the anorexic version of Gretchen “Miss Amerika” Carlson.)

We MUST not rush to judgment. This could just be another lone-wolf nutcase wh0 is totally outside the mainstream and to draw any judgments about RACISM (unspoken) without knowing the FULL story is just … just, well IRRESPONSIBLE, dag-nab it. [I am paraphrasing for comic effect and as a defense against narcolepsy.]

And then the pivot to “We’re all CHRISTIANS.”

Now, just by accident, I caught Louis Gohmert in a rambling “special” speech for the CSPAN cameras — since the other house conversation in the nearly-empty chamber nearly drowned out Louis’ rant. Louis didn’t notice. The talkers didn’t notice. The presiding chair didn’t notice. A typical congressional speech, in other words.

After attacking “supreme court justices” [sic] with a giant citation that a judge must recuse themselves (meaningless to SC Justices, as “Wild Bill” Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and others have demonstrably proven time and time again–DNA: Does Not Apply)

Louis pivoted to how this is a Christian NATION, as declared by the “Supreme Court” [sic, and for the same reason] of 1890 because a Supreme Court that always gets it wrong in 2015 was infallible in 1890. Yeah. Then the “my brothers and sisters in Christ” and the faux-pious BS of every “Christian Demagogue” back to when Hypatia was dragged from her chariot in Alexandria and skinned alive with sharpened clam shells.

And that was when I realized that this was the latest fallacy from news coordination central — which is only a paranoid fantasy if you believe in telepathy. I have known a lot of people and I have never yet seen a group with such a unified message that wasn’t in a cult.

Actually, when you think about it, GOP politics increasingly takes the form of a political cult. “Don’t listen to anything anyone but US says” is a standard symptom of a cult. It was the ability of cults to create a self-referential bubble (that generally embraced an epistemology of sheerest lunacy) that the “Deprogrammers” of the 1970s and 1980s were fighting against on behalf of anxious parents and conservators.*

[* No endorsement of “deprogrammers” is intended or implied. Their right to their own madness is the feral pig at the heart of this whole national self-immolation.]

Which brings us from Deprogrammers to Christians that madmen were looking to kill.

Consider the diabolical neatness of that pivot.

Here’s a truth you don’t much see: “minority” depends on the stereotype you’re dealing with. A person might be a “Black” a “Woman” and a “West Sider.” Her husband might be a “left-hander,” a “Colts fan,” or a “lesbian.”

You might be in the minority of “special” people. (Sorry: current social delicacy requires me to abjure from explaining further in the interests of offending no one.)

You might be a man. You might be an ‘Indigo’ and swim with the dolphins.

In Lindsey Graham’s cracker case, he can identify not as a Southern crypto-racist, but, rather as a Jesus loving Jesus swilling, Jesus quoting, super Christian and talk about healin’ and lovin’ and brothers and sisters and Jesus gumbo Beaujolais. Yum.

This befits one of the House Managers of the Clinton Impeachment, our nation’s foremost exponent of Foghorn Leghorn Epic Bullsquash and charmingly enunciated madness.

But, as noted, as the facts come to light about the shooter, it’s pretty clear that it was what the National Review Editor, the Barbie-doll disapproving news blonde, the Foxfauxfactsfax Machine and Lindsey Graham were hoping to avoid: an actual discussion of widespread organized race and hate groups and the continuing culture of racism in South Carolina.

The presumption, never granted, that Blacks are human beings with equal rights to Whites is so hated and its opposition so well-entrenched that one can find the implements and accoutrements of it everywhere, including the Confederate Battle Flag flying in front of the State Capitol — a living insult to the hundreds of thousands of Americans — Black and White — murdered under its provenance. And in the Confederate pride license plates. And the “code” embroidered flags of Apartheid Rhodesia and South Africa on the shooter in the picture now going viral in the news, et al, ad infinitum.

Flag of Rhodesia 1965-1979

I’ve written before that, as Whites slip into demographic “minority” (as faux “Christians” now claim persecution of their majority minority) this madness — both homicidal and merely heterogyne — is only going to increase. (Never underestimate the animal panic of the alpha killer ape when dominance is threatened, as Hamlet chronicles.)

For the past 24 hours, the rationalizers of Peephole Infallibility, the always judging, never judged, the racists who pretend even to themselves that substituting “thug” for “n*gg**” * makes the statement OK. Oll Keereckt. Yeah.

[* such is the power of this old, sad word that some will ONLY see said word. A mistake to have granted any word such power. Not so long ago, the word “F***” carried with it such power that one could be fired, arrested, fined or even jailed for using it, given appropriate context. Oh, I would commend you to William Seward’s rejoinder to Stephen Douglas on the floor of the Senate during the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Act: “No man will ever be President of the United States who spells Negro with two Gs.”]

These people exist and they are far more numerous than we know. Or knew. Think of how naive we all were, on Inauguration Day 2009. Now we know better.

So OF COURSE they don’t want to have this discussion. No: they can all be “Christians”!

Once upon a time I was at a political event with a certain woman who used her ethnicity as a weapon to get away with being nasty, as all knew, but could not say.

And also standing with me was a friend from upstate, an organizer for that selfsame ethnicity.

And she said :”You wouldn’t be able to get away with that if you didn’t outvote our interests.”

And I said, “But I thought women were a MAJORITY.”

Same pivot off stereotype.

My friend got it. He laughed.

She stormed off in a huff to abuse someone else with the pain of her persecution, and, therefore, her superior right to adjudge moral questions. Or she might have pivoted to being a “Christian” too.

I don’t know. I was thirsty and went and got a beer.

Still waiting to hear the NRA’s explanation as to how guns didn’t actually figure in to the slaughter and how pure as the driven snows are the souls of our friends, Gunpower Killing Devices. Er, I mean “guns.”

But despite the fact that the Justice Department has labeled the attack a “hate crime,” Graham was not willing to go that far. “There are real people who are organized out there to kill people in religion and based on race, this guy’s just whacked out,” he said. “But it’s 2015. There are people out there looking for Christians to kill them.”